Local stalwarts French Cassettes return with sunny day pop rock on "Benzene"
The latest work by Raven on Vaguetracks reminds us of the best of krautrock, plus our weekly show recommendations and the upcoming Lower Grand Radio show
Tune into White Crate’s show on Lower Grand Radio to hear our favorite music from the Bay Area in 2024! (so far)
TUESDAY, JUNE 11
8:30 PM PT
www.lowergrandradio.com
— White Crate
SUNNY DAY POP ROCK
If you wanna know how long French Cassettes have been around, lemme give you an idea: I remember listening to them on my iPod.
Granted, this would have been in the dying days of the device, around 2010-2011, but it goes to show what absolute stalwarts they are of the local scene. After going dormant for a few years, they’ve slowly crept back into the local music world. They’re here again with another full-length, Benzene. It’s an ebullient work: Tracks like opener “Fast Held Hand” and “White Noise” call to mind 2010s British rock—anthemic enough to fill a stadium, but when you listen a little closer, dripping with raw emotion. Others are classic French Cassettes with unabashedly feel-good, sunny-day, guitar-based pop tunes. It's a trip back to the early 2010s, and comforting to know they’re still alive and kicking.
French Cassettes are one of vanishingly few bands that have stuck it out through every iteration of the hand-wringing over whether music in San Francisco is dead or not, and we don’t celebrate those kinds of bands enough. They just keep making music, their own way, trends be damned.
— Jody Amable
HYPNAGOGIC POST-PUNK
What do you get when you mix post-punk and jazz? Many possibilities arise, yet in listening to the latest full-length from Raven, this writer can’t help answering “krautrock.” But while that genre suggests another time and place (namely, West Germany around 1970), Raven’s new album Secrets is an instrumental dreamscape from San Francisco today.
We’ve waxed poetic about the hypnagogic club work of Raven and their imprint Vaguetracks before (see: Encoded Language by Jade Snake, Dream & Future Spirit by Raven, and User Illusion 2 by Raven), and we’re delighted to hear another wide and spacious curve in the arc of the artist’s evolving sound. There are still traces of nostalgic vaporwave tones that may remind one of logging into the ‘Net after midnight in the late 1990s (“Windows”, “Soir”), but there are also new explorations. Try the downtempo minimalism on “Silhouettes” (sounding as good as Cluster’s best), or the funky buzzing live bass improvisation on “Midnight.” Haunting and beckoning, this work’s tendrils gradually lead you into its alternate world.
— Ronny Kerr
SHOW RECS
Our top show recommendations for the coming week:
[rock] Oakland Weekender ft. All Girl Summer Fun Band, Poundsign, Lunchbox, Neutrals, Seablite, Chime School, The Smashing Times, Maria, Kids on a Crime Spree, and more — June 6-8 at Thee Stork Club
[jazz] John Santos Sextet, Bill Ortiz, Ray Vega — June 6 at SFJAZZ
[rock] FREQz (record release), Winnie Wanders, Tricky FM, Mommy Mommy — June 6 at the Knockout
[choral] Free Key Choir ft. songs by Elizabeth Lubin, Mikayla McVey, Lizzy Dutton, Affectionately, Eli Utne, and Maya Elie and the Good Dreams — June 7-9 at the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland
[fest] Juneteenth Parade & Festival ft. Larry June, D'Wayne Wiggins (of Tony! Toni! Toné!), Martin Luther's Rebel Soul House Party, Stunnaman02, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Goapele — June 8 at Fulton Plaza between Larkin and Hyde, San Francisco
[latin] Bobi Céspedes — June 8 at Freight & Salvage
[club] Oakland Central Artery Block Party ft. HoneyBear, DJ Charles Hawthorne, Princess Dxddy, 7000COILS, FLORIDAWTR — June 8 at 15th and Franklin Streets, Oakland
[d&b] BLOOM ft. mothbot, Quetzal, Rivs, Soeneido — June 8 at Underground SF
[latin club] Tokischa, DJ JUANNY, Yuca Frita, Adam Kraft, nonsuit — June 9 at the Warfield
[jazz] Gary Bartz, Ambrose Akinmusire — June 9 at SFJAZZ
[punk] Ex Everything, Semuta, The New Trust — June 9 at Thee Stork Club
[punk] Spiral Dub, American Culture, Nothing Natural, Reality TV — June 11 at Kilowatt
[rock] Aquarian Blood, Fuckwolf, Freak No Hitter — June 12 at Thee Stork Club